Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • Prayer Cycle
      • Introduction to the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle
      • Day 1 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Cathedral
      • Day 2 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Scriptures
      • Day 3 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Saints
      • Day 4 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Spiritual Directors
      • Day 5 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Icon
      • Day 6 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Sacrament
      • Day 7 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Liturgy
      • Prayer Cycle Leader Resources
    • About the Abbey
    • About Christine Valters Paintner
    • About John Valters Paintner
    • About the Wisdom Council
    • Monk Manifesto
    • Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks
    • Subscribe to Our Love Notes
    • Website privacy notice
  • Books
    • Sacred Time:
      Embracing an Intentional Way of Life
    • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems
    • Earth, Our Original Monastery:
      Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude through Intimacy with Nature
    • Dreaming of Stones: Poems
    • The Soul's Slow Ripening:
      12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred
    • The Wisdom of the Body:
      A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women
    • Illuminating the Way:
      Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics
    • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
      Eight Practices for the Journey Within
    • Eyes of the Heart:
      Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice
    • The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom
    • Desert Mothers and Fathers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated & Explained
    • Lectio Divina–The Sacred Art: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer
    • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
    • Awakening the Creative Spirit:
      Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction
    • Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening & Awareness
  • Poetry | Art | Music
    • Music + DVD
    • Poetry by Christine Valters Paintner
    • Poetry Videos
    • Dancing Monk Icons
    • Other Art Collaborations
      • Monk in the World art series by Kristin Noelle
      • Saints & Animals art series by David Hollington
      • Sacred Time art series by Alexi Francis
      • Mary block print art series by Kreg Yingst
  • Programs
    • Live Programs: Pilgrimage & Retreats
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color
      • The Way of the Hermit:
        A Spiritual Survival Guide for Dark Times
        with Kayleen Asbo, PhD
      • The Spiral Way:
        Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
      • Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers (Lent 2021)
      • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
      • Novena for Times of Unraveling
      • The Two HT’s-Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World:
        An Online Writing Retreat
    • Self-Study Online Spiritual Retreats
      • Creative Flourishing in the Heart of the Desert:
        An Online Retreat with St. Hildegard of Bingen
      • Dreaming of the Sea:
        A women’s discernment journey through the story of the Selkie
      • Earth, Our Original Monastery
        A Companion Retreat to the Book (SELF-STUDY)
      • Exile and Coming Home:
        An Archetypal Journey through the Scriptures
      • Eyes of the Heart:
        Photography as Contemplative Practice
        (Companion retreat to the book)
      • Honoring Saints and Ancestors:
        Online Retreat for the Season of Remembrance
      • Lectio Divina:
        The Sacred Art of Reading the World
      • A Midwinter God:
        Making a Conscious Underworld Journey
      • Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea & Stone:
        A Creative Retreat with the Elements (SELF-STUDY)
      • Sacred Seasons:
        A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
      • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
        Eight Practices for the Journey Within
        (a companion retreat to the book)
      • The Soul's Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred (a companion retreat to the book)
      • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire
      • Watershed Moments
        in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures
      • Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist:
        A 12-Week Companion Retreat to The Artist's Rule
      • The Wisdom of the Body:
        A 10-Week Online Companion Retreat to the Book
      • The Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Contemplative Living, Cycles and Seasons, Grief

The River of Grief and the Well of Love (a love note)

To receive this love note from your online Abbess direct to your email in-box each week subscribe here:

Jane Swan - Our Lady of the Pears“So don't be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must think that something is happening within you, and remember that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don't know what work they are accomplishing within you?"

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Dearest monks and artists,

In the wake of so much grief over the unimaginable violence at Sandy Hook elementary school in the U.S. last week, I invite you to let sorrow have its place in you.  I have no easy answers, and people who claim God's will somehow at work in the violence are offering trite answers to a mystery that is greater than our understanding.  Our response must be to stand witness to the terrible things done, to grieve and know the fullness of our own humanity, and to cherish those we love dearly and hold them close.  We are reminded again and again that life is a fleeting gift.  Sometimes it slips away in illness and sometimes stolen brutally.  There are no words of solace.  We must simply be with the great sadness of loss and know that these wounds and places of being broken open are where the grace enters.  We must commit again to make this one life matter.

One simple act you can do in response to this heartbreaking thievery of human life is to let yourself feel the deep grief of it.  Notice when you want to push it away, or numb yourself, or find a distraction.  This capacity to sit with the pain and let it work its way through you is the first and fundamental response. The second response is an embrace of love as the deepest and truest thing, what makes life bearable under the most grievous of circumstances.  Hold someone you love close, make amends with a loved one with whom you had a falling out.  Extend yourself in this circle of love.  These things matter deeply.  Then comes the hard work of conversation and change of policy and ways to protect lives more vigorously.  But this work must emerge from a place that has allowed the river of grief to flow through and the deep well of love to nourish and sustain.  We must remember the extravagant source of life as we consider the reality of death.

One way to continue the journey toward personal transformation is to let this threshold time from one year to another be a time of reflection.  What have been the gifts and challenges?  Where was your heart broken and where were you giddy with delight?  Where have you experience great loss and great love?  If neither, what are you holding back from?

I invite you to let a word for 2013 choose you.  I write more about this here.  Share it with this amazing Abbey community spread out across the globe as a sign of hope that deepening and love are possible.  When you share your word you are also entered into a random drawing on January 7th to win one of several fabulous prizes from friends of the Abbey.  There is an abundance of gifts.

As a very special gift to all my newsletter subscribers I have a free gift for you – a 12-day online mini-retreat to help you listen for your word and make a commitment to deepen into it in the coming months.  To receive your gift subscribe to the Abbey newsletter and you can either receive the materials in daily emails or download it all at once.

The art above was sent to me by Jane Swan after I shared my story of Mary and the pear here a couple of weeks ago.  It was a contemplative collage Jane made three years ago titled "Our Lady of the Pears."  I am so heartened by this image and synchronicity (along with the image Yvonne Lucia sent to me last week), reminded of the ways the divine feminine is calling each of us to remember the fertile life force moving through the world, offered to us freely. I am reminded that it is in our opening to deep feeling that we access this fecundity for ourselves and become bearers of holy birth which the world so desperately needs. Welcome her in dear monks and all the juiciness she has to give.  Let your tears be like blessings.

With great and growing love. . .

Christine

Art credit: "Our Lady of the Pears" © Jane Swan

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Leave a Comment December 18, 2012

Upcoming Programs

The Spiral Way:
Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

Hosted by the Rowe Center
February 1-21, 2021
with Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers
Retreat for Lent 2021

February 17-April 1, 2021
with Christine & John Valters Paintner and Betsey Beckman

Recent Reflections

  • Hildy Tales 3: Ní heolas go haontíos ~ by John Valters Paintner
  • Humility + Join us today for live prayer! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 2: Tús maith leath na hoibre – by John Valters Paintner
  • New Book Club for 2021: Lift Every Voice ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales One: Dia dhuit, is mise Hildy! by John Valters Paintner, Your Online Prior

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